Chapter Two
Jonathan stared at the young lady seated on what had, an aeon ago, been his mother’s favorite chair.
The chair where he remembered her with her sewing in her hands when, as a small child, he’d been brought in by his nurse, pink and clean from the bath, to be kissed and patted on the head before bedtime.
The chair she’d occupied when he’d thought she loved him.
How he’d looked forward to that moment all day long when he could bask for a moment in that longed-for approval.
Although sometimes, but not often, it had been marred by the brooding presence of his father.
A chair of significance, and now, it seemed, it held a conundrum.
“Are you sure?” he asked, eyeing her up and down in appraisal.
Not quite the sort of woman he was used to associating with, although he had to allow that if she hadn’t been wearing such a shabby gown and spencer and that unfashionable bonnet, she would have been quite beautiful.
She had the loveliest blue eyes and beneath the terrible bonnet, hair of a rich auburn just asking for a man to run his fingers through it.
It wasn’t like him to miss an opportunity where a beautiful young lady was concerned, but she had caught him unawares and really not in any fit state for receiving a guest.
She nodded, her lips pressed together to make them thin.
“I am quite sure, my lord. In fact, I could not be more sure.” He saw her swallow as though nervous.
Then she cleared her throat, her expression becoming resolute.
“He informed me of this on his return last night, or perhaps I should say this morning, from whatever den of iniquity he’d chosen this time for the making of his fortune. ”
Her brow furrowed in a frown as though she strongly disapproved of both her father and the man she saw before her.
“Where he was unfortunate to encounter you, my lord, and through his own foolhardiness fell into your debt.” Her pale brow furrowed further, and her tone implied that this was not an uncommon occurrence.
And that she was not amused by it. Nor, most likely, by having been gambled away by her profligate parent.
What sort of a father gambled away his child?
A girl as pretty as this one? Try as he might, Jonathan could not bring to mind anyone he’d been playing cards with on the previous night, nor the fact that he’d been playing cards at all.
Nor where he’d been to do so. Everything was a total blank from leaving White’s to waking up this morning.
He considered his words with more care than he was wont to do, but at the same time part of him was weighing up the obvious benefits of having won a young lady in a bet.
Even with a pounding head, he was not blind to what this could lead to.
“I’m afraid I must admit that I have no recollection whatsoever of last night.
I am ashamed to say that I must have had too much to drink.
” He bestowed an apologetic smile on her, although in truth he wasn’t ashamed at all.
Winning a young lady in a wager was not something he’d ever done before, and the novelty of it appealed to his adventurous nature.
His friends would no doubt approve. “What exactly did he tell you? Pray elucidate.”
She clasped her hands together as though this question was hard to answer.
How very pretty she looked in her agitation.
He was liking this more and more. “My father returned to our lodgings in the early hours of the morning, as is his custom when he is out gambling, and woke me with the noise he was making falling over everything.” She squared her shoulders.
“You say you had too much to drink. Well, he is an old man and not large, and he cannot hold his liquor as well as someone like you.”
She gave a little shrug and wrinkled her delightful nose.
“He was, I have to admit, reeling drunk. But not so drunk as to forget to inform me that I now belong to you, to do with as you wish…” She set her jaw.
“I am sure you could find employment for me. I am more than capable with my reckoning, and if you have no use for me in your offices, then I am also considered an excellent cleaner so would make an acceptable housemaid.”
Did she really think that? A girl as beautiful as she was and she wanted actual employment as a servant? She thought a man with his reputation would set her to work in his kitchen, perhaps? He almost laughed, but her earnest expression stopped him. The laugh died in his throat.
She raised those wide blue eyes, eyes he could have quite happily drowned in, and was gazing up at him with more than a hint of a challenge.
Many thoughts tumbled through Jonathan’s still drink-addled brain, not least the things he would like to do with such a potentially beautiful young lady who’d just dropped into his lap like a gift from the gods.
However, his headache had got worse and his stomach was making complaining noises.
One thing he felt sure of though, was that she was not lying.
What reason would she have for doing so?
For she did not look all that happy about the arrangement her father had made. Not happy at all, in fact.
What to do?
Of course, the first thought that came to him was that he could make her his mistress.
Her plain gown hinted at a luscious body hidden beneath that he would very much like to explore.
She had the air about her of being untouched, so seducing her would be fun, and even if her father had used her before to pay his debts, no doubt he could, with his skills, awaken passions she might not know she possessed.
It wouldn’t be too hard to persuade her to want him, and to perhaps keep her for a while. After all, he was the Black Earl.
Some money spent on clothes, and she would be so much improved he could take her out on his arm in society.
To the theatre, to Almack’s or to Vauxhall or Ranelagh Gardens.
The last two being better, in his opinion, than Almack’s.
The thought that Lady Delamere would be green with envy was an attractive one.
Lately she’d begun to be more demanding, as though she felt she had rights of possession over him.
It would be fun to teach her a lesson and parade this young woman before her in the glory of her youth.
He looked Miss Farrington up and down more closely, assessing her possibilities.
A trim figure with the suggestion of small, pert breasts beneath her shabby spencer.
Long legs, slender arms and small feet, which she’d been assiduously trying to conceal from him beneath her gown, no doubt due to the parlous state of her boots.
A heart-shaped face boasting full, kissable lips, a delicate nose, and those mesmerizing eyes.
She’d make a good mistress, and she seemed convinced she’d have to do as he wished, so it wouldn’t be hard to persuade her.
Even if she had implied she was willing to work as a servant, being a mistress would surely be a more attractive proposition than drudgery.
He was well aware of his own attractions, and, being an earl and before that the only son of an earl, was well used to getting his own way since an early age.
But then something dawned upon him, creeping its way in through the clouds in his still fuzzy, aching brain.
Her name.
Farrington.
It had to be a coincidence; her having the same name as his friends Walter and Robert.
Lots of people must be called Farrington.
Lots of people in London and even more in the provinces.
Hundreds, if not thousands. But he’d better make sure.
It wouldn’t do at all to make a mistress out of some distant relation of Walter, his best friend.
Walter might call him out for it if he got to know, which he certainly would.
Impossible to keep one’s mistress a secret for long in London.
Most of the ton must already know of his relationship with Lady Delamere.
A relationship he was planning on ending even as he considered Miss Farrington’s alluring body.
He ran his fingers through his hair in some consternation. Better check. “You say your name is Farrington?”
She nodded, watching him a little warily, like a deer in front of a hunter, which only made her more desirable.
Despite the still pounding headache, parts of him were beginning to stir.
The parts of him that always stirred when in the presence of a beautiful woman.
He fought to regain control of himself, but, once a hunter, always a hunter.
Perhaps it was an apt description for someone in constant pursuit of the opposite sex.
Confidence that he would find it easy to persuade her to like him, and to have his way with her, grew.
However, first back to the possible problem in hand. Then the seduction afterwards. That would get rid of his headache in the nicest possible way.
He narrowed his eyes. “Might you, perhaps, be related in any way to Viscount Somerton?” An off chance, surely?
Walter’s elderly father never came up to Town, and he and Walter enjoyed a difficult relationship.
Jonathan had a vague idea Walter had more family elsewhere, but could not be certain of his information.
It was not a subject he and Walter had ever discussed.
She kept her gaze fixed on his face, those gorgeous blue eyes wide with innocence. Or were they? “Lord Somerton is my uncle.”
“Good God.” He couldn’t help the expletive. His grandmother would have reproved him for taking the Lord’s name in vain and, if she could have reached, she would have boxed his ears even now. Had she been having one of her spells of clarity, that was.
“No, he is my uncle, not God.” Was that a twinkle of amusement in her eyes? Was she laughing at the discomfiture he’d been unable to hide?